Thirty for three
by Claude le noctambule
Summary: Written for the challenge thirtyforthree on livejournal. Thirty one shot about RanxShinichixShiho.


**If Everyone Cared **- _Claude le noctambule_

The characters of the manga series Detective Conan are the intellectual property of Gosho Aoyama.

Warning : To avoid any misunderstandings, the thirty following one shots will not feature a love triangle but well and truly a polygamous relationship between the three main characters. Therefore, if such a theme makes you uncomfortable, for whatever reason, please don't read any further. Oh, and the first of these one shots contains spoilers for the most recent files of the series published in Japan at the time of writing, consider yourselves forewarned.

_These thirty stories are dedicated to both Dagron and Socchan, they know why._

**Theme 1 : Hidden**

Ran shot a couple of panicked looks around her before forcing herself to control the fear that had gripped her during the last few minutes. She had been as delicate as possible in closing the gate to Shinichi's garden, but the small creak that had come forth could have been enough to betray her. Maybe she should have left it half opened? No, the wind could have started to blow, causing it to slam suddenly, loudly enough to instantly alert Shinichi as to her presence.

Shinichi. He had reappeared in her life as suddenly as he had vanished all those months ago, and no satisfying explanation had covered his disappearance or his return. That was why the young woman had preferred to keep her enthusiasm in check and had mentally braced herself just in case her friend found himself dropping everything to depart without a by your leave once more. It was a worry that also seemed to trouble Shinichi, at least if the changes in his behaviour since his return were any indication.

Oh sure, he had become much more caring of her, and spent more time listening to her instead of rambling on about his exploits and his passion for Sherlock Holmes. He found it easier to find free time to spend with her too, however... Somehow a barrier had formed between them. A persistent wall, noticeable only thanks to signs that the young woman would have been unable to read barely months before. One could see it in the detective's eyes when they separated to go back to their own respective homes. Eyes in which Ran always read a worry that his smile had trouble hiding. Each time Shinichi said goodbye at such moments, she always thought she was hearing a farewell.

And then there were these other moments, those where she would notice her friend abruptly tightening his fist with a determined air before turning to her with a suddenly serious expression that nearly made her shiver. But it only ever lasted a few moments at most, the detective always closing his mouth again and turning his eyes away like a shamed pet, as if some words were stuck in his throat and were refusing to come out. Ran had tried to help him pull out what he was trying to keep inside, what was eating away at him day after day, but each one of her attempts had ended with a failure. Shinichi would close up upon himself or mutter some nothings that could not justify his behaviour; and whenever she tried to insist, it always ended up turning into an argument that did nothing but reinforce a bit more the unease between them.

Another scene of the like had just taken place only minutes ago, even if it had finished differently from previous occasions. The teenage detective's mobile phone had rung, singing the death of his prior and recent resolve. And even if the phone call only lasted a couple of minutes, the spark of panic it had brought to her friend's gaze didn't fail to grab Ran's attention.  
Sadly she had no time to wonder about it, the detective preventing any questions before they could arise.

A sudden detail he had to sort out, he had said. Nothing really important. It should only take him a couple of minutes. Neither made any effort to appear convinced by such a lie, nor did they attempt to expose it.

As she watched her friend turn away from her to run towards his home, Ran was paralysed by an unpleasant sensation of déjà vu. This unease, exactly the same as the one she had felt many months before at that amusement park, where she had seen her childhood friend run off saying goodbye. The same instinct was whispering to her that if she let him go, she would never see him again...  
This time too, the young woman did not have the strength to hold her friend back, but she did feel enough determination not to allow the same mistake to happen twice, and to follow him instead of morosely walking home.  
No way was she going to back out, she would follow her gut feeling through, whatever the cost.

After having discreetly approached the house from behind the cover of the garden's trees, the high school girl gulped as she prepared herself to quietly open the front door. But she heard a voice that was only too familiar coming from only a few metres away, allowing her to realize that the one she was looking for was on the outside and not the inside of the building. Following the sound of the voice she could hear resonating with anger, the detective's childhood friend approached its provenance and allowed herself a discreet glimpse as she hid behind one of the angles of the house.

Shinichi was there, standing with his back towards her so as to face some stranger. A stranger? No, even if she couldn't recall having met her before, the young woman suffering Shinichi's scolding with a small and amused smile looked nevertheless oddly familiar to Ran.  
That blonde coloured hair that glimmered red in the sunlight, those disillusioned eyes, that smile just as sarcastic as it was affectionate, all so many elements refusing to come together in the young woman's mind. She had the disquieting feeling that a painful truth was hiding around the edges of her consciousness, a truth she wanted to know yet that she was certain she would want to do everything to forget afterwards. 

Her recurrent suspicions about the true reasons behind Shinichi's absence, could they finally have been justified?

What should she do? Stay there and see her hopes smashed or discreetly walk away to live in doubt till the end of her days? A painful truth was better than an existence of lies and uncertainty. She would not run away, unlike a certain someone who was going to have to face up to his responsibilities.

"Why?"

"Why? That's a question I'm perfectly entitled to ask you, Kudo. Why should I stay any longer? The organisation is no more so you don't need to protect me any longer, everything seems to indicate that the antidote I made is permanent, I owe you nothing more. You no longer need me, nor do I need you, there is nothing left to keep me here, right?"

Shinichi did not say a word to contradict her, but the disapproval in his gaze made all words superfluous.

"With all the information we gathered together from their database, the FBI has plenty of proof against the organisation to inculpate them and render my testimony redundant. And considering that they gave you full access to that very information, our situation is truly reversed. If one of us can hide from the other the secrets of our old friends, it is most certainly not me. If you still have a valid reason to keep me by your side, I'd be curious to hear what it is."

"Can you be certain that all the members of the organisation are behind bars? No, you can't, and neither can I. Some may have made it through the net, maybe they even destroyed any information on themselves before we got our hands on it, or maybe some of those we already arrested have managed to escape as we speak..."

The only visible result of the detective's warnings was to accentuate ever so slightly the mocking twist on his interlocutor's lips.  
"In that case, I wish them much pleasure. To spend one's life living in fear of being found again by those who are after you, to see shadows at every street corner and their scrutiny in the eyes of every passer-by, to lose the right to live in a home only to spend one's time fleeing in permanence, that's the fate that awaits them in the coming months or years. Don't you worry about them Kudo, even if the FBI doesn't ever catch them, they'll be seeing the world through bars till the end of their life. Believe me, I know."

"And what if instead of running, they decide to come and avenge themselves of those responsible for their fall? Starting with you and me? Who knows if they'll even stop at us, maybe they'll go as far as to hurt the people we care for the better to prolong our agony..."

A glint of surprise sparkled in the stranger's eyes before leaving room to amusement as she raised her hand to her chin in a thoughtful pose.  
"How ironic. When the organisation was still extant, such considerations would only ever briefly cross your mind, and now that it is destroyed, I am no longer the one living in their shadow..."

"I promised I would protect you from them, didn't I? As for me, what I find ironic is that after all these months of fatalism, you suddenly adopt an attitude you yourself would have called stupid and suicidal just a couple of months ago."

"So that's why. My brave knight still needs his damsel in distress to play his role? Kudo, you yourself told me to face up to my problems instead of running. I have had enough of simply surviving when what I want is to live."

"Maybe you won't live long if you persist in doing what you faulted me for doing all these months: underestimating them."

The half-foreign woman's lips opened to spill forth a tired sigh.

"It's possible, and even likely. You see, I'm not even going to try and contradict you. But what matters to me, understand, is that even if they do find me, in the last moments of my life I would have been free. For all my existence, they held me in their power with fear, and they continued to do so even after I left their ranks. Now, for the first time in my life, I no longer fear, do you understand that? However the story ends, I will have at last triumphed over them."

A bubble of silence surrounded the two actors of the scene and their invisible spectator before bursting at the detectives sharp words.  
"Whatever you believe, you continue to flee. Do you really think I'd let you quietly sit beside a timed bomb waiting for it to explode? Did you forget what I did the last time you acted that way?"

"No, Kudo, I did not forget. You grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of that bus, running the risk of dying there with me, and then you told me that running would get me nowhere. You were perfectly entitled to act that way since it wasn't only my future but also a part of yours I was about to destroy. But now, I don't owe you anything, my life is no longer linked to yours, it is entirely my own and I am free to do with it what I wish. And even if I give you the impression of wasting it, you have no right to force me to act otherwise."

Ran didn't even need to look to feel the tension that had grown between the two teenagers, the irritation in their voices was practically solid.

"So be it, if you so wish to die, it's your decision. But you still have responsibilities to face up to!"

"Really? And may I know which ones, now that..."  
The young woman paused before giving the detective a smile that was more disillusioned than mocking.  
"Oh I see. Now that our common enemy is neutralized and you got what you wanted from me, the peace between detective and criminal shall come to its end. It is time for the latter to pay up for all the crimes she committed, is it not?"

Shinichi tightened his fist to evacuate anger as his interlocutor continued to stare at him with a provocative expression and offered him her wrists to supposedly cuff. Opening his mouth to explain his thoughts to the woman before him, the high school boy ended up closing it with a sigh. It hadn't taken him long to notice the melancholic glint in the eyes above the woman's smirk.

"Do you really believe I ever planned on handing you over to a court of justice? Is that really what you believe after all these months?"

"I always knew I would have to face my responsibilities one day or another, even if I thought they would appear to me under Gin's features and not yours."

"I repeat my question. Do you really think I would seriously consider putting you behind bars?"

"You managed to convince your idol to hand himself over to the police from what I know, right? Your admiration and your affection for him didn't weigh much in your decision, why should I expect any other treatment? Especially since unlike me, Ray Curtis only had the one death on his conscience."

Even though he lowered his eyes before the one who had reminded him of one of his most bitter victories, the detective quickly found the strength to confront her gaze once more.  
"The comparison is baseless. Ray had a choice, it was through his own will that he got so deep into drugs and that he went on to commit murder..."

"Are you trying to say I didn't have any choice?"

"You had a choice. The choice to write my death into the file the organisation was asking from you on Shinichi Kudo, the choice to stop your research, the choice to create this antidote, the choice to ask of Vermouth to let me live and keep my survival secret..."

Lowering her arms in a resigned motion, the scientist nevertheless kept her saddened smile.  
"I did not stop my research for humanitarian reasons, but because the organisation did not keep its side of the deal and killed my only remaining family. If I was willing to give myself up to Vermouth, it was mostly because I was tired of living in fear and wanted to finish it once and for all. I asked her to spare you? I had nothing to lose in trying, and it doesn't pardon me any more than the fact that I committed my crimes to save an innocent can wipe them away. As for the antidote? Come on, Kudo, it was the least I could do to offer it to you. It's kind of you to look for extenuating circumstances for me, but even to my ears they sound fake."

"It is so much easier for you to find solace in your own guilt, huh? Easier than looking forwards, I suppose?"

The young man's attack didn't cause any other reaction than a shrug from his interlocutor.   
"You can look at it like that if you would rather, I don't care whether I convince you or not. And anyway, Kudo, it is not for you to decide if I have paid for my crimes or not. Unless you have decided to put yourself in the place of the law and pass judgement instead of the judges? I find this rather unusual for someone who claims to be Sherlock Holmes's heir."

"If you knew Sherlock Holmes as well as I do, you'd understand that I truly am his heir in treating you in this way, but I don't think you wish to talk about my favourite detective, do you?"

Bringing one of her hands to her face to brush away a strand of hair blown by the wind, the scientist gently shook her head.  
"No, indeed, I am not in the mood. And whatever you think, or whatever Sherlock Holmes would have thought, of my situation has no importance. You are not the law, Kudo, merely someone who chose to dedicate his life to defending it. If ever the idea crossed your mind to help me escape from it, that would make you the accomplice of a criminal, and that gives me an extra reason not to remain near you. From that angle, we might as well say our farewells here and now."

At the very instant the young woman was about to turn her back to him, the detective hurriedly crossed the few steps between them to clasp his hand around her wrist.  
"You are going to need to find a better excuse to run away. Who else do I need to protect you from, apart from the members of the organisation?"

Widening her eyes before the young man's determined glare, the scientist nevertheless managed to regain her cool, though she didn't have the strength to pull her hand out of his grasp.  
"It is true that the Japanese police hardly knows anything about the organisation, but the FBI? Now, I no longer have anything to buy my freedom with. Didn't I tell you? With the organisation dismantled, none of the information I hold would have any use for them, and they have more than enough proof to do without me as a witness. Why would they leave me alone? The CIA? Oh, I suppose they would find nothing better than to force the FBI into close their eyes on my crimes, but that would be in exchange of one thing only. That I hand over the results of the research I did for my ex-employers. Maybe they would even demand that I continue them for them. Don't forget that if they infiltrated the syndicate, it was first and foremost to get their hands on my parents' work."  
The young woman's eyes were icier than ever as she stared straight into those of the detective that held her within his grasp.  
"And never more will one see me sell my soul for an illusive freedom. Do you hear me? Never more. I'll personally see to it that I keep with me unto the grave that damn research responsible for so many deaths, even if it means throwing myself head first into my own before my time."

The silent battle between the two adolescents lasted a good minute before one of them decided to give up with a sigh, yet still not to let his prisoner go.  
"I talked to Jodie, Akai and James Black, and they certified to me that Sherry was considered to be a closed case. She was found and eliminated by her colleagues, that is what is written in the official reports. In addition, the names Miyano Shiho and Haibara Ai are in none of the files they are handing over to justice. As for the CIA... We made a settlement with Rena: she'll testify to her employers that the organisation would rather destroy any information to do with the Apotoxin than have it fall into enemy hands."

For a few moments, the young woman was unable to hide the surprise caused by the detective's words. But her face regained her sceptical expression once she got over it.

"If those were the reasons you had to leave the country, know that you don't need them anymore. As for the Organisation... Even when it was still strong, you believed I would be more apt than the FBI to protect you from them, right? So please, stay here a little longer, long enough for me to help Jodie and Akai to definitively close the case."

"You don't need to feel obliged to protect me any more. Anyway, I have other reasons to leave as well, and none whatsoever to stay. You don't need me any more. I want to prove to you that I no longer need you."

The scientist's words were far from having the strength she had wanted to give them; neither Shinichi nor Ran had any trouble realizing that.

"Miyano... No, Shiho. I still need you, so even if you think you can do without my help..."

The girl who had just heard her birth name for the first time in months widened her eyes, as much because of the familiar tone of address her friend had used as because of his words and the look that had accompanied them.  
"You need... Me? For what would you still need me for now?"

Allowing herself a quick glimpse from her hideout, Ran was rewarded with a spectacle that had become all too familiar these past few days. The only difference was that Ran was no longer its sole spectator.

"I... The antidote, if ever it turns out to be a failure and you aren't around..."

With that simple sentence, the detective had released all the tension he had created the moment prior, and it was with a sigh that Shiho broke the following silence.

"So that's why. That's the reason you wanted me to stay nearby, the reason you still haven't made up your mind to..."  
Despite the distance, Ran had no trouble seeing the disappointment in the young woman's eyes before they slit into a saddened expression.  
"Listen, Kudo, I understand that after the failure of the last antidote I gave you, you would have reason to worry, but... Last time, it was only a temporary antidote. I warned you from the beginning that its effect probably wouldn't last eternally, and you choose not to believe me. The one I gave you now has nothing in common. Not only does it put an end to the side effects of the Apotoxin, but it has cleansed our bodies of it. I was able to test it on lab rats thanks to the samples we salvaged from the organisation's headquarters. My antidote worked perfectly on the two mice that survived my poison. And honestly, knowing me as you do, do you think I would take it myself if I was unsure of its results?"

The detective smiled with irony.  
"You took it before allowing me to do so, I therefore deduce that you were unsure of the total absence of risks, weren't you?"

Shiho turned her face away so as not to let her companion witness her irritation.  
"And did I bother to test the temporary antidote before handing it to you? Not that I know of..."

"Who knows? After all, while I was in that hospital, there was a lapse of time equivalent to that of Shinichi Kudo's temporary return before your nocturnal visit. You seemed so sure that it wouldn't work permanently, you arrived at precisely the moment its effect wore off, and if I recall the total lack of surprise on your face and your glance at your watch, it certainly can't be a coincidence. You knew exactly how long it would last for."

"Think what you want, it doesn't matter. What does is that two weeks have gone by since I took the antidote and it is still Shiho Miyano that you have before you. I believe that clearly shows that you have nothing to worry about, right?"

Still holding the scientist's hand captive in his own, Shinichi moved slightly, so as to put himself in front of the face she was trying to hide from him.  
"Can you swear in all honesty that there isn't a single chance that Shinichi Kudo's return won't be once again temporary? "

The detective and the criminal glared at each other for a short few moments that seemed to them to last for an eternity.  
"Of course not. No antidote can be perfect, nor is there such a thing as a perfect poison. But if I had to take into account the infinitely small probability that my antidote will fail, and it's barely above zero, then I would practically have to stay by your side till the end of your life waiting for the day where its effects would end. Is that what you want of me?"

A few seconds passed between the moment the detective parted his lips to answer and when he gave her his response, a delay that neither of the woman awaiting his answer failed to notice.  
"No... Of course not... I just need some time to adjust to the idea that... Forget what I said. I effectively don't have anything left to ask of you."

Even though he at long last decided to give back her freedom of movement, neither Shinichi nor Shiho decided to move away and re-establish a certain distance between them.

"What about the professor? After all these months with you around, he will find it hard to get used to the idea of living alone again. And he still needs someone to remind him of his diet... Even if he won't admit it."

For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, the young woman's smile showed nothing but tenderness.  
"Don't worry. At this very instant he must be too busy to worry about my absence, and that might be for a while..."

"What do you mean by that?"

"As we are talking, he must be finding out that he invited over to his place a childhood friend he has only seen once in decades. To be more precise, she must be the one telling him so. Oh, and did you know that the lady in question is single, contrary to what a certain celibate scientist thought?"

It took a good dozen seconds for the detective to make sense of the scientist's words.  
"Fusae Campbell! Don't tell me that..."

"It's fortunate the kind professor never thought to ask me to give him back the sick mask he made for me to be able to take your place. You haven't forgotten, I hope? It works in the same way as that handy bowtie of yours."

Shinichi hid his eyes behind the back of his hand as he raised his face to the sky.  
"You are... Really..."

"Consider yourself lucky I didn't decide to play matchmaker with you. At least, not yet..."

The high school boy instantly turned towards the chemist with a horrified look.  
"Don't you even dare to..."

"You can save me the bother of trying, you know."

Cut off by the woman's intervention, Shinicih surrendered by turning his head away with an annoyed expression, so as to no longer meet the triumphant eyes of his best enemy. But the spark of joy that was shining in the scientist's gaze only took seconds to dim as silence surrounded them once more, a silence she felt the need to fill.

"The professor has already brought me so much; it would be selfish of me to stay with him any longer when I don't need to hide anymore. And even if I'll miss our old couple act, he's found a more qualified half-foreign woman to play along as his wife. As you can see, there really is nothing to keep me here."

"Ayumi? Mitsuhiko? Genta?"

"Haibara's little friends? They have no reason to want to know Shiho Miyano, they'd most likely rather see their old friend again, who went across to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, just as little Conan Edogawa did. Who knows, maybe those two will end up getting married there? A perfect ending for the story, is it not?"

"Probably, yes..."

Silence once more surrounded the two actors and their lone spectator. An intermission that continued on for minutes, giving the latter a chance to assimilate the meaning behind the show she had just witnessed. The last few lines had been superfluous, all the puzzle pieces had already come together in the young woman's mind by then, and even if there were still zones of shadow, most of the picture now appeared clearly, too clearly. The truth behind her friend's absence, why it had been Conan who had come to console her when Shinichi had left her alone in that restaurant, an explanation that allowed the simultaneous presence of Conan and Shinichi in the school play to make sense, the motivations of the criminal who had tried to kidnap Haibara, the abnormal maturity Shinichi's supposedly distant cousin always seemed to show, and the little girl whom Professor Agasa had taken on overnight... All of this had been before her very eyes, all these months, and yet she had remained blind, blind to the point of wondering whether she was crazy for imagining that Conan and Shinichi could have been the same person.

How could she not have seen this? The answer was simple: she hadn't wanted to see. After all, she didn't feel flattened by the truth that should have sent all her markers in life flying within a second. No, she felt curiously detached, as if she had only just put her hand upon a memory of a past event she hadn't thought about for years but that she hadn't forgotten despite that. She didn't even have the strength to try to make herself feel angry about all the months of lies, all the intimate moments, all these confidential secrets she thought she had shared with a little brother and not the man she was in love with. Why couldn't she resent him when she had every reason in the world to?

Maybe because deep inside, she had long ago accepted this truth... No, in fact, she had not only accepted it, she had always desired it. It was easier to imagine that Shinichi had always been by her side than to think that he could be forgetting her a little more each day, to end up seeing her as nothing more than a distant childhood friend or a voice he only ever heard through a phone. Don't they say "out of sight, out of mind"?

Ran had a slightly amused smile as she thought back to the suspicions she had had, to all those scenes where she had imagined Shinichi with some stranger who bit by bit was taking her place in her childhood friend's heart when she wasn't there to stop her. Turns out she hadn't been that far off from the truth, she did have a rival, even if she would never have imagined it could be an eight year old girl.

A rival? The high school girl held back a small laugh at this thought. But the more the thought made its way into the young woman's mind, the less amusing the reflections it gave became. For the detective, Haibara had never appeared as an eight year old girl, but as an adult, an adult who, during these past few months, had been closer to Shinichi than she had ever been to Conan. And didn't Sonoko whisper at multiple occasions into her ear, as she had looked at Conan and Ai, that she could without the shadow of a doubt claim that the two were made for each other and would form the perfect couple within a few years?

The young woman hit her forehead with the palm of her hand to flush away such thoughts. Her friend's supposedly infallible instinct when it came to romance had never brought her anything but failures when she had looked for a significant other of her own. She hadn't found Makoto, he had found her. What is more, Sonoko's remark that day had had no other purpose than to tease her about her own relationship with a childhood friend she had fallen in love with.

Yes, she had no reason to feel jealous. If Haibara and Conan had seemed so closely linked, it was because they shared the same secret and were hiding from the same foe. If Shinichi had been so close to the scientist, it was only because she held the key that would allow him back to his old life and knew better than anyone those who had stolen it from him. But if their relationship was truly based only on that, why then did Shinichi try to prolong it when it no longer needed to be? The answer probably lay in the conversation she had just overheard: because the detective thought the reasons they needed each other were still valid. Why look any further? She could not resent Shinichi for still feeling responsible for the one he had protected all these months, and she couldn't blame him either for wanting to keep an escape door in case his cure turned out not to be definitive. He did not want to give her false hopes like that time at the restaurant, that was all. That had to be the explanation for his strange attitude since his return. He had to be split between the urge to confess to her what he had not been able to say for months and his fear of losing everything again overnight just after. The pain of being near the person she loved without being able to love them nor to escape the sad reality by pretending that Conan and Shinichi were two different people, that was what he wanted to avoid having her suffer and she could only be grateful.

It was absurd to imagine her childhood friend trying to confess anything else to her these past few days. Anyway, what else could he wish to confess to her without having the strength to? What else than... That he had ended up falling for another?

A sigh escaped the young woman's lips as she leaned against the wall hiding her. Why was she so mean-spirited? Why couldn't she manage to put her full trust in Shinichi? Most likely because the latter hadn't given her much trust in all those months spent lying to her...

"I had hoped that you had understood..."

Dragged from her thoughts by the voice of the one who had been at their core, Ran surreptitiously slipped on eye out from behind her hiding while doing her best to remain unseen. For a short moment, she felt guilty about intruding on her friend's life like this without his authorization. But after all, hadn't he done exactly the same thing with her during all those months? She was only returning the favour.

"Understood what?"

"The antidote, the organisation... For me you weren't just about that. At least, maybe a bit, at the beginning, but..."

The scientist considered the detective with an expression as tender as it was amused.  
"I already understood, idiot."

"Then in that case, why do you find it so hard to understand why it's so difficult for me to watch you leave my life all so suddenly?"

Shiho's eyes widened a brief moment, before once more narrowing into a mocking gaze.  
"What? No more false pretences? Be it to protect me from the last members of the syndicate or to have me nearby in the unlikely event that the antidote fails?"

Even though he had turned away no longer to face his companion, the high school boy did not try to deny her accusations, leaving the chemist to break the silence once more.

"I suppose I should be flattered that you at long last decided to recognize me as a friend, but I find it superfluous, you see. Actions speak louder than words for me. Professor Agasa never felt the need to tell me he had decided to trust me despite my past, he simply made me understand in the way he naturally behaved with me. No, truly, you have no need to tell me that I've become a friend for you..."

"If you knew this, why did you decide so suddenly to leave the country? The only explanation I can think of is that you have nothing, nobody to keep you here now that the organisation is destroyed and you have given me that antidote."

The chemist sighed as she feigned to lose interest in her companion through the study of a cloud passing over head, covering her in its shadow.  
"That we be friends while we shared the same prison cell and we needed each other's mutual support, that seemed normal to me. But that we stayed so after the walls of our prison collapsed at last, I had more trouble believing. I thought we would each go off on our own after cordially wishing each other good luck in our new existence. It seemed like a logical conclusion to me. I definitely couldn't imagine you ending up considering me an important part of your life."

"You can see that you were wrong now. So why don't you choose to stay? Instead of going off in two separate directions, maybe we could walk on side by side? If you feel guilty about continuing to live at the professor's, you could temporarily stay over at my place while waiting to find your own home..."

Arching an eyebrow at the detective's offer as well as the warm smile that had accompanied it, the chemist locked her face into an enigmatic expression as she stared once more at her interlocutor.  
"It's very generous on your behalf, but did you think about Ran and how she might react to such a situation? She would be fully entitled to ask herself questions, and misunderstandings happen so easily so easily."

"If I explain your situation to her beforehand..."

"Explain it to her fully, including the smallest detail?"

Digging his hands into his pockets with an embarrassed air, Shinichi began to examine his shoes with the same interest he usually reserved for a vital clue in a murder case.

"Maybe not into the slightest detail, but at least sufficient detail for her to understand that she has nothing to fear..."

"Okay, pass, but I still imagine Ran would rather do without an extra housemate in her conjugal home, no? Even if she had too good a heart to tell me, I would feel like an intruder who came to disturb the intimacy of a couple who asked for nothing more than to spend at long last some moments alone together after months of separation."

"I told you the situation would only be temporary, didn't I? Even if I had declared myself to Ran, she wouldn't be moving in the following day. It would take us months, maybe even years, to reach the wedding stage. And she's perfectly able to understand that she has no need to feel jealous nor to feel afraid of you just because we would be living under the same roof."

While the scientist withdrew deeper into silence as she seemed to consider the young man's proposal, one of the two people awaiting her answer felt torn between relief and shame. Relief that she had indeed gotten the wrong idea about the relationship between her friend and the young woman, shame that she could have had such an idea even the space of an instant, and even shame that she couldn't manage to get completely rid of it even now.

"Sorry Kudo, even if I am touched by your offer, I find myself in the obligation to decline and maintain my decision. That said, rest assured, it's not as if I had decided to leave your life definitively. I never considered settling myself in any other country than this one. I will return soon enough."

Shinichi didn't even try to hide his disappointment nor his scepticism regarding the chemist's last words.  
"So be it, I'll respect your choice. But would it be too much to ask of you the reasons that push you to make such a decision?"

Some long minutes passed by before the scientist deigned to give an answer or be it a glance to her interlocutor.  
"Well, since you insist so much and I probably won't have any other way of making you understand..."

Cutting across in a few steps the distance separating her from the stunned detective, the ex-criminal caught him firmly by the neck of his school uniform before sealing her lips against his. This sudden turn of events between the two teenagers only lasted a short instant though, the scientist having but brushed against the threshold she had forbidden herself to cross.

"I suppose I don't need to make myself more explicit, do I? Anyway, I believe Ran would be terribly mad at me if I allowed myself to be."

Shinichi remained dumbstruck as he faced the features barely a dozen centimetres away from his own, a distance both too short and too long to his taste.

"I... You... Since when?"

The chemist started to smile, as much at of her victim's discomfort as at the question she found only too futile.  
"Does it matter? I believe I don't know it myself, so you could attribute to it any beginning suits you the most. Be it the moment a small boy carried me on his back to help me out from the burning basement of a hotel, that where he stupidly risked his life to forcibly remove me from a bus about to explode, the one where he kindly lent me his cap to hide my hair... As I said, does it really matter? The only thing that counts, is that I ended up taking notice..."

Gently stepping back from the detective she had silenced, the chemist turned her back to her victim without truly moving away.

"I suppose that now, you understand why I can not accept your offer? Why I need to keep at a distance from you? Why I need to get used to a life without you? This does not mean we could never be friends, of course. Only that I need a bit of time to accept the idea that we are just friends."

Even though he had started to lift his hand towards her shoulder to make her face him again, he stopped as she turned her face slightly towards him, giving him an umpteenth enigmatic smile.

"I have no wish to suffer needlessly by locking myself into the illusion that we are a couple or could be one day, and I would rather take myself away from the temptation of tasting a bit more of the forbidden fruit. If I am really your friend, I'm sure you understand perfectly, right?"

The chemist's lips lost their mocking twist as a sigh spilt through them.  
"I guess I have nothing else to add, one way or another. When you do get around to marrying Ran, let me know and I'll come back to witness the ceremony so as to no longer have the possibility to believe it never took place. Don't worry, I'll give you a means of contacting me as soon as possible. So if you want to see me again really soon, you had better not dally in proposing to the one you love..."

Certain that the conversation had come to an end and unwilling to prolong her unease or her victim's, Shiho began to slowly walk away from the one to whom she had turned her back upon, in both meanings of the phrase. But she barely had the time to make one step forward before the detective had suddenly caught her hand and forced her to turn around so he could give her back her change, with interest.

This time, it was Shiho and Ran who shared the same surprised look and absence of reaction before the improvisation of one of the actors of the play in which they were both actor and spectator. Even the one who was in the front row to witness the performance didn't have the strength to encourage him to go on. And when the one who had initiated the coup de theatre at last decided to end it, the one who had been its most direct victim took a good minute to get over her confusion, and that was only to end up repeating a phrase she herself had found flimsy barely a few minutes before.

"...since when?"

"You said so yourself, didn't you? It does not matter. I didn't realize it till afterwards either. In fact, the only difference between us two, is that I thought things would go back into place by themselves with just a bit of time. I didn't care for the luxury of distance, unlike you."  
Even if he'd never been closer to the young woman than before that instant, her thoughts had never been so far out of reach, so much so that he felt the need to fill in a bit of the distance from his own side.  
"That said, I imagine that the only true difference is that I never wanted to put an end to it."

Closing her eyes as the words of her childhood friend sank a little deeper into her heart, Ran bit her lip as she started to feel moisture form between her eyelids. What use was it to complain and stay there any longer? In a sense, she had found what she wanted, exactly what she wanted.

She probably would have already vanished if some other words hadn't come to stir her crumbled universe, words that hadn't been pronounced by the one who had smashed it to pieces in the space of a few moments.

"And Ran?"

The one who had just overheard her name froze in the middle of her stride, unable to finish another step. Time seemed to suspend its course for the three protagonists of the piece before the one that was holding it hostage let it run anew.

"If I told you that she was just a friend for me? Would you believe me? In all honesty?"

"No."

The scientist's response didn't take even a moment to fly forth, it was so obvious after months of seeing the daily proof, that this conviction had been as deeply rooted into her as the firm belief that the sun would rise again the next day. 

"And you would be right not to believe me."

"Yes, it would be very hard for me to accept that you could so easily turn your back on her, very difficult for me to believe that you couldn't feel an ounce of regret or guilt after all you have put her through these passed months, very arduous for me to believe that I could represent for you what she for so long represented to your eyes... But do you want to know? After all that's happened, it's even harder for me to believe that the love you feel for her is as strong as I had thought; or at least, that what you feel now is as strong as what I saw you express all these months. So what should I expect of the one you supposedly feel for me?"

Rather than hide his guilt by turning his eyes away, the detective chose to close them while gently pressing his forehead against the chemist's.

"I guess you don't have to believe me but... My love for Ran, it hasn't decreased a single bit during all these months, much the contrary. It's just that now, I can no longer in all earnestness claim to Ran that she is the one and only person I have ever, and will ever, love."

"Really, Kudo... I can imagine it's not easy to appear convincing when one promises eternal love to a woman when one has just betrayed another who had already received such a promise, but you can do better than that. Tell me your love for Ran has decreased to the point where you think you may love another, tell me you have stopped loving Ran but feel too guilty towards her to admit it, but most certainly do not pretend to still love her as you did the day we first met."

Unable to open his eyes and face the accusing glare of the one he kept against him, the teenager was content to suffer her complaints while gently reinforcing the hold he had on his captive's hand. It was only when he felt a sigh softly brush against his lips that he allowed himself to raise his eyelids, only to notice that it was his companion's turn to close hers.

"Is it so hard to admit, Kudo? I never claimed to be a saint, and would be very badly placed to do so, but if we are to betray Ran, I would rather do it before her. Yes, I am cynical and selfish enough to go that far, but do not ask of me to lie to her. I do not wish to relive the same torment as with my sister. And even if I helped you to deceive her all these months when it was about protecting her from something much deadlier than adultery, I most certainly won't do it for someone who is incapable of assuming his responsibilities. It is with you that I have fallen in love and if you wish it to stay that way, then do not become the kind of person I loathe most. Don't you dare become like me. I can accept that the love you give me is not perfect, I can buy my happiness for the price of a betrayal, I can share my life with someone who has made mistakes -after all I have to deal with my own company- but there's a limit to how much I can betray the one you claim to still love..."

Gently opening her eyes, the chemist fixed the detective with a gaze that was icier than ever.

"Understand well one thing, Kudo. Whatever my situation with you at the end of this day, Ran shall learn of what just took place. If you do not have the courage to confess everything to her, and I mean everything, I'll do it. And believe me, it won't be through a phone or one of the professor's voice modifiers. No, I'll speak to her face to face, in my name and taking great care to make her understand under which name she knew me before hand. You see, if my sister's death has brought me any one thing, it has taught me to confront directly my crimes and my victims, be it you, all those months back, or her, in a few hours."

It took Shinichi a full minute to climb out from his muteness before the ultimatum he had just been handed.  
"I was planning on confessing everything to her anyway. You don't need to go that far or suffer that. If someone has just betrayed her now, it isn't you."

The detective paused as he felt the ex-criminal firmly dig her nails into the palm of the hand that still entrapped her fingers.

"I owe her at least as much as you do. At least as much, you hear? So don't you dare try and reduce the relevance of my crimes, do you understand me? Don't go and burden yourself with part of my guilt, and don't you dare imagine I would be so kind as to relieve you from part of your own."

"I never asked that of you. And believe me or not, but I was being earnest when I told you I had never stopped loving Ran from the moment I realized she wasn't the only woman in my life. Quite the contrary."

A sniff welcomed the teenager's words.  
"If you don't have the strength to be honest with one of us, at least be honest with yourself. And stop dirtying the feelings you may have felt for Ran at a time by giving the name of love to what is but its shadow, or maybe even less, just some guilt you don't have the backbone to assume..."

"Guilt and the inability to break a promise at least as precious to me as the one I made to protect you, is that how you see things? If I had spent all that time away from Ran as I had her believe instead of under the same roof as her, it would probably have been just that. But after having been by her side even more than I ever was in my life as Shinichi, after learning more about her than I had in all my years before swallowing that poison, after standing beside her unable to admit to her what I was feeling a bit more each day for her, no, I can not pretend that I found myself no longer loving her. I can not pretend that I do not want to make her happy. And I am not going to lie to myself, I don't want her happy because it's what I promised, but because I know it would make me happy in turn to do so."

Releasing the chemist with a sigh, the teenaged detective didn't turn his gaze away from hers.

"And I can't deny either that I still want to protect you even if the organisation is practically destroyed and you no longer need me to do so, I can't deny that I still wish to feel your presence by my side, even if you are no longer one of the few people in the world before whom I can be myself. I can't deny that I still want to learn more about you, even if you no longer have any secrets on either the organisation or the antidote to hide from me."

Despite maintaining eye contact with her companion, Shiho didn't have the strength to use the freedom of movement he had just returned to her to move away from him.  
"Kudo, even if Ran and I love you in the same way, you can not pretend to do the same. You will have to choose which one of us will simply remain a friend for you, even if that implies losing that friend for good."

"No, I can not pretend to love two people in the same way, but that does not mean I love one more than the other. You are both as important for me one as the other, even if for different reasons."

"Casanova must have used similar lines when he held the same kind of discourse to each of his conquests whenever she discovered him in the arms of another. Stop fleeing your responsibilities..."

Shinichi did not hide his irritation as he brusquely put his hands on his accuser's shoulders.  
"Stop saying that I am running away from my responsibilities! I would be doing that if I told Ran I can love no one but her, or had I told you I had ceased loving her."

The silent stand off between the two old friends continued until the scientist put an end to it with a disabused sigh.  
"You haven't changed at all, Kudo. Still unable to make a hard decision, you always try to win on both fronts. You continued that cruel little game all those months with Ran in order to protect her, yet you stayed by her when you knew that by your sole presence you were endangering both her and the rest of her family. You didn't want her involved in the fight against the organisation, yet you couldn't make do without her presence, so you involved her directly. It's always the same, always... And every time you pretend that it's for the happiness of others and not your own that you act like that." 

Breaking the contact between him and his accuser, Shinichi turned away slightly from her so as to no longer face her criticisms directly.

"That said, I'm probably in the wrong position to judge since I too would like to win on both fronts. I want to see you make Ran happy, and in the same time, I wish to try and find happiness by your side..."  
It was with a melancholic smile that Shiho greeted the detective's slightly surprised look.  
"You were telling me so earlier, no? That even if we can't love two people in the same way, it doesn't automatically mean that the love felt for one is any less precious than that caused by the other. Believe it or not, but you aren't alone in wishing for Ran's happiness."

A joyless laugh escaped the scientist's parted lips.  
"One must believe that I haven't changed at all either. Even after betraying the Organisation, I refused to collaborate entirely with you against them. And now, I don't have the courage to assume the role of she who would steal from Ran her lover nor that of the sincere friend who would sacrifice her small egocentric happiness for the one person in the world as precious to my eyes as Akemi was. Truly, it is not surprising that I choose the colour grey for my family name. I never had the strength to fully assume the colour of black, nor the courage to fully associate myself with pure whiteness."

The young woman's fake amusement had totally vanished from her face as she stared at her companion with an expression that had nothing to envy of her attitude whenever she used to warn him of her old colleagues.

"But that changes nothing of my decision. Ran shall learn the truth, the whole truth, on what has happened between us. Whatever her decision regarding you, she needs to be in full measure to make it in full knowledge of the case. I do not want her to suffer when she learns that she knew nothing of the man she chose to spend the rest of her life with; when she at last finds out the truth, the truth you are so keen to say there is only one of. If she cares enough about you to accept that you could share your affection with another, if she is prepared to accept a marriage damaged from the onset by infidelity, then it must be by her own choice, not a choice you would have imposed upon her. You and I have both made too many decisions for her."

Drawn deep into his thoughts, the detective ended up coming out of them with an expression neither Ran nor Shiho had ever had the opportunity to contemplate despite their proximity to him. They may have seen him smile often, but this was the very first time the corner of his lips expressed neither arrogance, amusement nor tenderness, only maturity.

"You were telling me that you never wanted to live a similar situation to that which you and your sister suffered. I may probably never understand what it is you felt when you would face her while still in the organisation while she ignored nearly everything about them..."

"No, you can't understand. Even if the situation may seem similar to the one you lived with Ran, and I can perfectly see why, they are nothing in common. You, you only needed to protect her from the organisation, I also had to protect Akemi from the crimes I had committed for them."

"Most likely. But I just wanted to say that I no longer want to fool the person I love most in the world either, even if it is to spare her pain. I would rather we be separated by the truth rather than by another lie. That is why I approve of your decision to tell her everything once and for all, before it is too late for any of us."

The chemist returned his smile to the detective without adding any ounce of tenderness.  
"Right, at least there is one thing upon which we agree."

"Only one? Really? Yet you seemed ready to agree to spend the rest of your life with me... Even if that meant sharing part of that life with another."

"I'm too old to believe in a Prince Charming who will promise total devotion and eternal loyalty, Kudo. If I ever was of an age to believe in such nonsense. It's not a fairy tale prince who protected me after I fled the organisation, it isn't a stellar example of virtue who many a time risked his life to save the one I no longer wanted, nor is it the perfect man every young girl dreams of that gave me back a taste for living the life he forced me to hang on to despite everything. No, it's just a foolish detective, too cocky, too self assured, who, from what I have seen, can't even remain faithful to one person. However that idiot suits me very well as he is. Nothing is more foolish than looking for happiness in one's dreams that one can not find in one's reality. A reality that may be imperfect but that I can at least touch with a finger; a reality which, as disappointing as it might be from certain angles, supersedes by far the illusions of dreams I allowed myself at one point in my life."

Approaching slowly her interlocutor, the young woman illustrated her words by underlining with her fingers the features of the face before her.  
"The simple fact that I may represent more for you than an antidote and a source of information on your foes, the mere fact that one can feel a semblance of affection for me after having seen who I really was, means so much to me already. So imagine how I must feel about the idea that I could cause more than that in you. Do you really think I could give up all that merely because part of your heart belongs to someone else?"

Resting his hand upon the scientist's, Shinichi decided to delicately intertwine his fingers with hers.   
"No, but I imagine that the price to pay for what I have to offer, you aren't all that happy about paying."

"I never wanted to make the poison that Gin forced you to swallow, but it didn't stop me from fully profiting from what it forced you to offer me. A protector, a reason to live after the death of my only family, a friend... So even if I didn't choose to make you swallow a new poison which has gangrened your feelings towards Ran, why should I act any differently? I am without doubt a despicable and egoistic person, but at least I have the merit of being honest with myself. It will only be the third time in my life that I'll repay the affection I get from someone with my guilt- I am used to such deals."

Shinichi sighed while letting his other hand slide through his companion's hair, as much to caress it as to gently force her to stick her forehead against his.  
"If you are as self centred as you imagined, then why do you care so much that Ran should learn the truth when I never implied that I would impose that restriction on you and that, after what we have lived through together, you were perfectly entitled to believe I would be capable of continuing to live a double life with her?"

"Don't try to idealise me. Ran is the kind of person capable of accepting adultery because of her love for you, while I am just a cynical person who only makes a decision after weighing the pros and cons and thinking of herself before anyone else. There's a limit to the price I'm willing to pay for you, and I gain by seeing Ran happy, it's as simple as that. If I truly placed others' happiness before my own, I wouldn't even consider a situation that would only bring you suffering, to you and the other person you claim to love. "

"Even if Ran could accept the idea that I can love her while loving someone else at the same time, I have no doubts that it wouldn't necessarily guarantee any of us happiness; but why are you so adamant that it would necessarily end with a failure?"

It was Shiho's turn to brush her companion's face with a sigh.  
"I can accept that you love another, if that other is Ran. Ran may accept that you love another. But the moment you try to add a fourth person in the already all but stable balance, I know that it won't hold. Even if Ran could accept such a second betrayal, I know that I would never forgive you. Not for me, but because you would have been pretentious enough to have us believe you really felt love for both of us, and most of all you would have had Ran believe that you still loved her."

"I know it is hard to believe, but till the end of my life, there will only be room for two people in my heart. Not one nor three, but two."

"Honestly, Kudo. Isn't that making a promise you aren't in any position to keep? You were not able to limit your love to one person, for what reason should we trust that you can fix yourself a limit?"

Opening his eyes, the detective reflected upon the question he could see reflected in the gaze of the chemist, hoping the answer he was going to give would also appear in his own.  
"Perhaps, yes. Maybe I will be unable to keep this promise. But that is the case for every person who swears to another that they will love them to the end of their lives. What makes it so different if the promise is made to two and not one? I haven't yet broken the promise I made Ran, and I haven't broken the promise I made you when the organisation was still around, so please, can you trust me a second time?"

Whether the detective's gaze was in accord with his words or not in the young woman's eyes, she nevertheless forced him to gently relax his hold on her.  
"I've changed my mind, Kudo."

A chill ran through the high school boy's spine.  
"How so?"

"I won't tell Ran the truth, and I won't force you to do so. The decision is yours, and I'll accept it whatever it is. After all, it would be hypocritical on my part to demand of you what I was unable to do for my own sister. But allow me to tell you one thing... One thing I already told you a few months ago. Ran is stronger than you think. She will have the strength to face up to the truth, the strength to live without you, and most of all, the strength to trust you. Whether she wants to trust you or not, that is another question, but believe me when I say she will have the strength. So, if you are truly sincere with me when you said you still loved her, be just as sincere with her and have the courage to trust her once and for all. This is just a piece of advice I am giving you, you are free to follow it or not."

"And you? Are you ready to trust me?"

The chemist looked at the detective with a mixture of melancholy and amusement.  
"You feel the need to ask when I have just given you the possibility to start lying to Ran again?"

"Well, in that case, it is time for me to prove a second time that you were right to believe me."

Before his friend's transfixed gaze, Shinichi pulled out his mobile phone from his pocket before opening it up.  
"Who are you calling?"

"You don't know when you yourself gave me the opportunity to tell Ran the truth upon my own initiative?"

Just when his finger was about to activate the call that would link him to his childhood friend perhaps for the last time, determination let way for hesitation upon the boy's face.  
"I would just like to know one thing before it is too late to turn back."

"What thing?"

"I'm going to tell her to come here so I can tell her in person. Will you still be at my side when she arrives or would you rather I take care of this matter on my own? After all, it is solely up to me to..."

"This issue, as you said, concerns all of us. And I clearly told you that I would face the consequences of my acts just as you should your own."

The two teenagers contemplated each other for a few long minutes before lowering their eyes to the phone that one of them had finally decided to use, awaiting with overt anxiousness the answer that would be the prelude to the showdown.

Ran, during this time, remained strewn on the ground, staring at her own mobile phone with an absent air. This was the phone Shinichi had given her as a tangible proof of the link that united them despite their separation, the phone which she had put into silent mode and put the vibrator onto it's minimum setting, a trick she had learnt from observing Conan, this phone she was tempted to smash to the ground so as to no longer have the chance to answer.  
Why had she come all the way here and why had she so stubbornly stayed till the end? How things would have been much simpler otherwise.

Yes, it would have been infinitely simpler for her to believe that her worst fears had their basis in a very tangible reality, Shinichi had stopped loving her and had kept her in ignorance and lies during all these months because he did not have the courage to face up to his responsibilities earlier. But now... Now, she could no longer ignore the conversation that had taken place between her rival and the one who had betrayed her.

Beforehand the world had seemed so much simpler. There were only two alternatives: either the one whose return she had waited for so long had never stopped loving her, even though he was temporarily deprived of the opportunity to tell her in person, or he had stopped loving her and did not dare to confess so to her. But instead of that, she found herself sucked into a greyish world where neither possibility seemed totally true or totally false.

Unless her refusal to accept the betrayal of the one who had been her most treasured being was driving her to accepting a bit too easily his lies a second time?

No, it would have been infinitely easier for Shinichi to have a secret relationship than to try and convince her that he was in love with two people at the same time... Or would it?  
After all, it was still possible to fool one person, but two at the same time, that would have been much harder. Especially if one of them had had the occasion to observe him closely as he led a double life before the one he was supposed to be in love with. What if all this conversation had been a clever set up the detective had used to seduce the person he was currently truly in love with? This stranger she had called Ai Haibara for so long. And if Shinichi had managed to precisely predict that she would refuse his offer and indirectly give him her benediction with this woman she now had to get used to calling Shiho? In this manner, he would give himself a heroic role before his new sweetheart and would not appear to be a Don Juan prepared to make a promise to the first woman in sight when he knew perfectly well he would be unable to keep it. And he had even more reason to act so since the latter seemed to feel guilty for interposing herself between the two childhood friends.

No, she had clearly stated that she was prepared to have a relationship with him despite the fact that he had, or might still have, feelings for another, and despite the conscience issues that such a decision would have given him, the detective had no need to go so far.

Why was she ready to go that far? Did she love the detective to the point where she would accept not only his imperfections but also that the love he had to offer her was not exclusive? If that were the case, Ran could add envy to jealousy in the list of feelings she felt in regard to the young woman, since she seemed to have the strength she was lacking and that she felt such a need for at present. The strength that, ironically, Shiho had attributed to her on top of everything.

Or was it despair that was behind her devotion? After all, hadn't she said during this conversation that Conan had given her a reason to live after the death of her only family?

Family... When her own had fallen to pieces, it was Shinichi who had been there to support her and help her face the rip that still hadn't completely healed after so many years. He had done the same thing with the scientist when she had fallen into a much darker void than the separation of her parents had brought her to, a void that, unlike her own, held no possibility of one day being filled. Looking at things from that angle, it became much harder for Ran to resent her rival for falling in love with her childhood friend, just as she could only difficultly find reason to resent her facility in accepting the limits of the love the detective had to offer in return for her own.

Without forgetting that the detective had brought her much more than that, he had given her something Ran could not even imagine the worth of, let alone understand truly. Shinichi, the one who had one day admitted that he would not hesitate to denounce the Professor Agasa if he discovered him guilty of a crime, the one who had stated before her that no reason whatsoever could justify a murder in his eyes, she had just seen him aid a murderess to escape from justice. Not because he had benefited from her help nor because of her feelings for her, but because he had decided that she had paid back her crimes.

Ran could accept the idea that Shinichi had stopped loving her, as painful as it was for her, but to imagine him renouncing his passion for justice which she had always so admired in him, that was completely aberrant. What he had lived through these past few months may have changed many things in her childhood friend, but there was a part of him that nothing in the world could ever shake. This was a part of his personality that could not escape the eyes of those who had frequented the detective closely. What a murderess could feel in seeing someone like Shinichi claim that she had paid back her faults, Ran might most likely never truly comprehend, even if she could grasp the idea of the impact it was likely to have on someone.

A sigh crossed the young woman's lips as they folded into a melancholic smile. Oh how much simpler the time when the one who appeared in her nightmares to steal Shinichi's affections from her had neither face nor personality, and only appeared in the form of someone between her and the one she loved. Yes, in those conditions, it was so much easier to let oneself go to jealousy and a feeling of betrayal.

But now that her rival appeared to her as a human being with both face and feelings, a person whom she could understand and even someone in whom she could read more reasons than in herself for being in love with her childhood friend... Now it was hard to only experience rancour and jealousy towards her.

And Shinichi, it wasn't as if he had gone to look elsewhere without a single thought for the one who continued to wait for him. No, he had only helped someone, in the same way he had done with her many years prior, and the relationship it had created between him and that person had ended up evolving, in the same way that the friendship that had united the both of them since their most tender childhood had.

Why did the world have to be such a complicated place? The separation of her parents had brought her so much suffering and yet she could not accuse either of them of hating her more than they loved her, much to the contrary.   
Her parents... There had always been something more than rancour and contempt between them, even after their separation, and yet neither of them had crossed the line to rebuild their happiness with the other, neither had had the courage or the humility to accept a happiness that would never be perfect and could only be paid for with efforts and concessions. Was she doomed to make the same mistake as them?

And could she truly resent Shinichi for refusing to choose between two people who were both as dear to his heart even if for different reasons? Many years prior, she had faced an alternative that had been just as painful, and if she had had the possibility to keep both her parents instead of making do with just the one, she would have tried it without hesitation. Would she not be both hypocritical and cruel to refuse her friend a weakness she herself had felt, if one could even call it a weakness?

To tell him that in life, one could never have everything and that he had to make a choice just as she had done? To stay consistent with herself, she would then have to renounce her efforts to reconcile her parents.  
She had not forgotten the first months of her parents' separation, those moments where she was held hostage by two people who both demanded of her affection that they seemed to suffer when seeing her give to the other. No, she had not forgotten that particularly painful pass in her life, and she would not wish on anyone in the world to live that, not even her worst enemy.

To do what her parents had been unable to do? To give to Shinichi the occasion she would have wanted to be given? Even if she were truly able to do so, it would only have meaning if Shinichi was sincere when he swore to be in love with both of them, but was that truly the case?  
Did he still love her or was he feeling too guilty to abandon her? Was he even in love with the one who had been the little Haibara or did he feel too guilty to abandon her when he knew what he meant to her? Did he even love either one of them?

Maybe Shinichi was lying in his claim? Maybe he was lying to himself, without knowing?  
She had no way to know, but she could choose to trust him, or at least to try to...

In the end, things had not changed much from what they had always been. Whether a third person was to be taken into account in their relationship or not, the essential question remained. Would she trust Shinichi? Would she trust him as far as to believe he would never make the same mistake with her as her parents?

Either way, she could no longer turn away and was forced to either renounce Shinichi or accept this third person. Yes, the scientist had ended up becoming an essential feature of her friend's life and there was nothing she could change about that. Even if she forced Shinichi to give up Shiho, she would remain between them, shining through her absence and the regrets she would see in her spouse's eyes, regrets that would end up eating away at their union day after day until the moment where separation would be their only choice left.

What to do now? She could not postpone indefinitely the moment where she would take the most crucial decision of her life. Even if she continued to ignore the phone that was vibrating in her hand, even if she refused to return to her home in fear that the detective might find her there, she would sooner or later be confronted by her friend and the choice he would have to offer her.

Wiping her face that the tears had rendered humid with her sleeve, the young woman stood up before putting away in her pocket the phone she no longer needed. Things had changed, none of them had any reason to remain hidden.  
Quietly coming out from the protective shadow of the detective's home, Ran gently approached those that were awaiting her answer without knowing that they now had no need to ask their question.

The high school girl smiled at the terrified expressions her appearance caused. Shinichi's face had strictly nothing to envy that of a certain Conan Edogawa who had had to face her in certain circumstances. As for the young woman she would have to get used to not calling Haibara, she had looked at Ran no differently than that time when she had run towards the child to protect her from her previous colleagues.

It took the detective a good whole minute to get over his shock and break the icy silence that had invaded the scene.  
"Since when..?"

"Long enough for you to no longer need to confess anything to me..."  
Ran felt the need to add something to dissipate the tension her words had caused.  
"However that doesn't mean that we don't have anything left to tell each other. In fact, there is a lot we need to talk about."

Time seemed to stop around the three protagonists as they prepared themselves to discover whether they were living the end of the story... Or a new beginning. 

-


End file.
